


Starry Night

by DonnesCafe



Series: Celestial Navigation [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 09:46:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1261801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DonnesCafe/pseuds/DonnesCafe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock finds himself in Afghanistan, meditating on the stars and John</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starry Night

He could see the sliver of a moon on the horizon. Overhead the whole Milky Way wheeled over him, bright and friendly as the mobile hanging over a child’s crib. Would John be surprised that he knew it was the Milky Way? John would certainly be surprised to know that he was at that moment contemplating the Milky Way from a perch on a low, red sand-hill in the middle of nowhere in Afghanistan. After all, he was supposed to be dead. He took a long drag on his fifth cigarette of the evening and blew the smoke upward toward the constellation Cygnus, hanging at the southern edge of the summer spread of stars. The fact that he knew it was Cygnus and could even recognize the brightest star in the swan’s tail amused him. Deneb. He took another drag on the cigarette. His astronomical knowledge resulted from a fit of pique after a heated conversation in Baker Street with John. Something about the earth revolving around the sun.  Blah, blah, boring.  Yet soon thereafter, he found himself inexplicably undertaking the task of filling in what John seemed to think an inexcusable gap in his knowledge.

The plan became to surprise John on some starry night with the depth of his (new) erudition about all things sidereal. Astounding John had become a game he enjoyed. Exactly when and where this starry night was to be obtained remained vague, since they spent almost all their time in light-polluted London. He had thought of luring John to the country – perhaps a cottage somewhere during the summer. He had had hazy ideas of country walks and pub lunches and … stargazing. All rather foreign to him, of course, but things he thought John might enjoy. He thought he could stand it for a day or two. He knew vaguely that he was hell to live with, although John said he was never bored. It might be nice to have a holiday and, well, stargaze. Sherlock, usually the most rational and clear-eyed observer, couldn’t quite put his finger on why this holiday plan had formed in his mind.

Moriarty had intervened, of course. Instead of stargazing in Cornwall or Yorkshire or wherever, he was hiding in the desert. He hadn’t even gotten to do the research on the best areas for stargazing, damn the man to hell. He hadn’t gotten to tell John an honest goodbye. Hadn’t gotten to tell him…. The stub of the cigarette burned his fingers, and he dropped it with a curse. He reached inside his khet and felt for the bundle of handmade cigarettes and matches. He struck a match, and the tiny flame illumined a face darker and harder than it had been the year before, mostly covered by a short, dark beard. The beard and the khet partug, a tunic and pants, were traditional in the Pashtun tribe where he had gone to ground after an attempt on one of the still lively tentacles of Moriarty's network had gone sadly awry.     

Instead of a summer holiday with John somewhere leafy and green, he found himself in the baking summer heat of a desert. Often the nights were hotter than the days, but the dust storms were usually confined to the daytime. He had ferreted out Moriarty’s operations all over Afghanistan: the drug syndicate in Jalalabad, the terrorists for hire from Kabul to Khost, arms traders and pimps in the Hindu Kush. Then he came on  the jewel in the late, unlamented Criminal Mastermind’s Afghan operation. Afghanistan is, it turned out, a center for human trafficking. Men and women.  Girls as young as twelve sold into prostitution. Boys taken from their homes and forced to become suicide bombers. His stomach turned over as he thought of it again. He suddenly took such a vicious pull on the cigarette that he started coughing uncontrollably. John would not be pleased about the cigarettes. But John might never know. When he encountered Moriarity’s human trafficking web, still thriving under a lieutenant named Fahad Jaan, he had been so revolted, so outraged, that his caution deserted him. Not only had his frontal assault failed to make a dent in the network, he had barely escaped his ill-advised infiltration of Jaan’s compound with his life.

The deserts of Afghanistan were an excellent location for stargazing. There was not a man-made light for uncounted miles around him. Well, except for the tiny red glow on the tip of his cigarette and the cooking fires back at the camp. The air was dry and clear. Had John sat in the desert as he was sitting now, looking at the stars and thinking about death?

The idea of death had never bothered him particularly. He had lived for the moment and the chase, to stretch the powers of his mind and body against a problem and best it. Any thought of an afterlife was a laughable fantasy. Taking risks made him feel alive, and he had always calculated that a somewhat premature death of some sort was part of that bargain. He owed no hostages to fortune. Until now. John, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson. If he had ever prayed, he would pray that they were still safe. He lost contact with Mycroft when he took refuge with the Pashtun, so he didn’t know.

He looked up at Ophiuchus, the constellation known as the Serpent Bearer. A smile ghosted over his face. He remembered when he first read about Ophiuchus. It was reputed to be easy to find because it was shaped like a tea-pot. Not only that, the ancient Greeks associated the constellation with Asclepius, the god of medicine. Tea, medicine – obviously John’s constellation. He would have been reluctant to admit it to the doctor, but studying the stars turned out to be fascinating.

He didn’t believe in God, but he believed in John. He sent up a prayer to Ophiuchus. Keep him safe. Keep me alive until I can see him again. He stubbed out his cigarette in the sand. He stood up to meet little Mehtar, Imzaa’s youngest.

“Mama says come and eat something. She says you are too thin. She says….”

Sherlock smiled, took Mehtar’s hand, and headed back to the camp.


End file.
